May 23, 2005

Genetics in the News

Banned swimmer wins case over supplements
A swimmer who claimed a contaminated vitamin caused him to test positive for steroids, costing him a shot at the 2004 Olympics, has won $578,635 in a lawsuit against a maker of dietary supplements.

The Genetics & Public Policy Center has released two new reports, "Human Germline Genetic Modification: Issues and Options for Policymakers" and "Cloning: A Policy Analysis". Both can be found at www.dnapolicy.org.
Interview with Jamais Cascio, James Hughes, Ramez Naam and Joel Garreau "
They discuss the implications of human enhancement technologies, and Garreau's new book, "Radical Evolution: The Promise and Peril of Enhancing Our Minds, Our Bodies -- And What It Means To Be Human."

Neurotech Index
To help investors gauge the overall welfare on the public markets of companies specializing in neurotechnology, NeuroInsights has introduced NeuroInsights' Neurotech Index in the recently released strategic investment and market analysis report on the neurotechnology industry.

Gene therapy promises the holy grail
A new gene therapy technique, which is more than twice as effective as steroids at boosting muscle, will soon be given the go-ahead for testing on humans. After that, doctors say, it is inevitable that athletes will try to use it to enhance their performance.

Large genomic differences explain our little quirks

When the finished sequence of the human genome was unveiled last year, biologists said that it told a story of harmony for the human family. Every one of us, it turns out, shares 99% of our DNA with all the other people on Earth. But it's our differences that really fascinate us. And at last week's annual genome meeting in Cold Spring Harbor, New York, scientists revealed a wealth of data indicating a surprising conclusion about human diversity â€” much of it might be explained by large structural differences between individual genomes, not by tiny differences in individual genes.

May 17, 2005

Medical Journals Are an Extension of the Marketing Arm of Pharmaceutical Companies

â€œJournals have devolved into information laundering operations for the pharmaceutical industryâ€?, wrote Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, in March 2004. In the same year, Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, lambasted the industry for becoming â€œprimarily a marketing machineâ€? and co-opting â€œevery institution that might stand in its wayâ€?. Medical journals were conspicuously absent from her list of co-opted institutions, but she and Horton are not the only editors who have become increasingly queasy about the power and influence of the industry.

Sniffing Out the Gay Gene

Steve Pinker on the recent study of pherenomes: "It may not be a coincidence that the new discovery came from researchers in Europe. In America, the biology of homosexuality is a politicized minefield that scares away scientists (and the universities and agencies that pay for their research)."

May 13, 2005

Deciphering DNA, Top Speed

http://www.techreview.com/articles/05/05/issue/forward_dna.asp
Using technology developed by Stephen Quake, a Stanford University biophysicist, and with $27 million in venture capital funding, Helicos is currently building its first sequencing machine. The company intends to place the device in an academic lab for testing by the end of the year. Helicosâ€™s first commercial sequencing machines will be ready for sale by the end of 2006 or early 2007, says president and CEO Stan Lapidus.

May 11, 2005

It's Science, Not a Freak Show

The latest focus of apprehension over the headlong rush of biotechnology involves the creation of animal-human hybrids, known as chimeras. Distinguished groups of ethicists and scientists have been pondering what steps should be taken, if any, to head off the nightmarish possibility of a human brain's becoming trapped inside an animal form, silently screaming, "Let me out," or a human embryo's being gestated by mice. It is fascinating - some would say terrifying - to contemplate, but these weird, far-out possibilities with chimeras that will be needed to advance science.

May 10, 2005

Is it a drug in search of a disease, or simply an affliction in need of better publicity?

Marketing a Disease, and Also a Drug to Treat It Avanir hopes that the drug, Neurodex, will win federal approval by the end of this year as a treatment for the uncontrollable laughing or crying that can be caused by various neurological diseases or injuries. As one doctor described the odd syndrome in a 1989 article, "Pathologic laughter is devoid of any inner sense of joy and pathologic weeping of any feeling of inner sorrow."

genetic mingling

Genetic mingling As strange as his work may sound, it falls firmly within the new ethics guidelines the influential National Academies issued this past week for stem cell research.

In fact, the Academies' report endorses research that co-mingles human and animal tissue as vital to ensuring that experimental drugs and new tissue replacement therapies are safe for people. Doctors have transplanted pig valves into human hearts for years, and scientists have injected human cells into lab animals for even longer. But the biological co-mingling of animal and human is now evolving into even more exotic and unsettling mixes of species, evoking the Greek myth of the monstrous chimera, which was part lion, part goat and part serpent.

new CDC initiative

Evaluation of Genomic Applications in Practice and Prevention (EGAPP) is a three-year model project that is now underway with technical support from RTI International. The goal is to establish and test a systematic, evidence-based process for evaluating genetic tests or other applications of genomic technology that are in transition from research to practice, and to effectively disseminate that information to health care providers, consumers, and other important stakeholders.

postponing menopause

Making human eggs with stem cell research, postponing the menopause Research has shown for the first time that human eggs may develop directly from cultured ovarian surface epithelium (OSE) cells derived from adult human ovaries. Oocytes derived from the culture of OSE cells developed in vitro into mature eggs suitable for fertilization and development into an embryo. These findings, published today in the Open Access journal Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology, offer important new strategies for use in in vitro fertilization and stem cell research, and cast doubt on the established dogma on the fetal origin of eggs in adult human ovaries.

May 05, 2005

test

May 03, 2005

New Scientist - Mind-reading machine knows what you see It is possible to read someoneâ€™s mind by remotely measuring their brain activity, researchers have shown. The technique can even extract information from subjects that they are not aware of themselves. So far, it has only been used to identify visual patterns a subject can see or has chosen to focus on. But the researchers speculate the approach might be extended to probe a personâ€™s awareness, focus of attention, memory and movement intention. In the meantime, it could help doctors work out if patients apparently in a coma are actually conscious.

mixed roots

Mixed roots: Science looks at family trees Welcome to the 'ancestry industry,' where DNA tests produce family history hints - and profits. After his parents died, Malcolm Dodd began to suspect he wasn't his father's son. A relative came forward with a story, and the pieces seemed to fit. His father had spent three years fighting in Southeast Asia during World War II, when Mr. Dodd was born. Some sleuthing led him to suspect that his biological father might have been an American soldier stationed in Britain. But Dodd - born and raised in Britain and now retired in Portugal - wanted stronger evidence.

Cloning hurts animals, exploits grieving pet owners and is unnecessary in a state that kills more than a million unwanted dogs and cats each year, said Assemblyman Lloyd Levine (D-Van Nuys), whose bill, AB 1428, would make it illegal to sell cloned pets in California.

May 02, 2005

global

Service learning goes global to test DNA Several times over the last few years, Ballard has included students in her trips to Africa to help the government of Tanzania collect and extract DNA samples from the citizens. While service learning traditionally has a strong emphasis on community, Ballard is expanding the definition. Ballard is nearly finished with her original mission-building a database for Tanzania to help its law enforcement personnel solve crimes. But Ballard has found that it is equally important to show them how to use the DNA data to assign paternity. "I see it as a women's and children's issue," she says.

Wired News: We Ain't No Biocolonialists National Geographic's recently announced Genographic Project hopes to trace human migration from Africa 60,000 years ago by analyzing the DNA from indigenous populations.

At least one native organization, the Indigenous Peoples Council on Biocolonialism, proposes to boycott the project and its sponsors.

Brainpower drugs coming for sports Susan Polgar will never be mistaken for Jose Canseco. For one thing, she's a mother of two; but more to the point, she's far too smart. A four-time women's world champion in chess, Miss Polgar lifts kings and queens, not dumbbells and subpoenas. So imagine Mrs. Polgar's surprise when officials asked for a urine sample after her four-medal performance at last year's Chess Olympiad in Calvia, Spain.